All babies are born autistic, one of our group said once. We laughed nervously. We agreed, but it was dangerous to say so. It takes a neurologically normal infant years to learn to integrate the incoming sensory data into a coherent concept of the world. While it took me much longer—and I readily admit that my sensory processing is not normal even now— now—I went at the task much the same way as any other infant. First flooded by ungated, unedited sensory input, protecting myself from sensory overload with sleep and inattention. You might think, reading the literature, that only neurologically damaged children do this, but in fact all infants control their exposure—by closing their eyes, averting their gaze, or simply falling asleep when the world is too much. Over time, as they make sense of this data chunk and then that, they learn what patterns of retinal excitation signal what events in the visible world, what patterns of auditory excitation signal a human voice—and then a human voice speaking their native tongue. For me—for any autistic individual—this took much longer. My parents explained it to me, when I was old enough to understand for some reason, my infant nerves needed a stimulus to persist longer before it would bridge the gap. They—and I—were lucky that techniques were available to provide my neurons this needed duration of signal. Instead of being labeled with an “attention deficit” (which used to be quite common), I was simply given stimuli to which I could attend.

From “The Speed of Dark,” by Elizabeth Moon

A magnificent piece of literary and scientific writing. The author gets into the shoes of autistic individuals to study how their brain functions. Based on observation of her son, Elizabeth Moon manages to portray their lives, conversations, doubts, fears, and feats, reasserting their equal humanity with the rest of us “normal people”—whatever that means. “You might think, reading the literature, that only neurologically damaged children do this, but in fact all infants control their exposure—by closing their eyes, averting their gaze, or simply falling asleep when the world is too much. Over time, as they make sense of this data chunk and then that, they learn what patterns of retinal excitation signal what events in the visible world, what patterns of auditory excitation signal a human voice—and then a human voice speaking their native tongue.”

Being a neurologist, I can appreciate her work’s scope and great value.